The Crowd Funding effect

Wednesday 15 October 2014 - Editorial Assistant

Crowd funding sites are just not limited to young entrepreneurs, students and start up businesses- Established designers are using the concept to promote come back and passion projects too.

Elizabeth Emanuel who famously designed Princess Diana’s royal wedding dress, is using CrowdCube to try and raise £1.5 million for her new fashion brand called ‘the Art of Being’. The designer’s creations were also loved by Elizabeth Taylor and Joan Collins.

The aim of Elizabeth Emanuel is to open a shop just the credible Bond Street and hire ten creative employees. The designer project has potential to turnover £10 million over a course of five years. Her bespoke dresses will be priced from £20,000 while her ready to wear line prices start at £1,500.

The designers reasoning for not going down the conventional route and opting to crowd fund, is because it allows a more creative control and gives designers the option to hire their own team.

Kickstarter and Indiego are ranked as the top crowd funding sites. Kickstarter users unfortunately lose about ten per cent of their fee’s but with the site receiving around ten million visits a month it is one of the better known crowd funding sites.

Crowd funding websites use videos, messages, photographs and regular updates to encourage people to give money. Hundreds of UK students are using the online campaigns to support their education. Film and fashion students don’t often rely on sites such as Kickstarter as they are usually required to produce short films or fashion collections that require a real budget to be proved successful and up to industry standard.

This new wave of non business strategic funding sites makes room for more creative and innovative business ideas, if used properly.